Comment by GenXCub

Socketed with a Royal Nightseye and an Insightful Earthstorm Diamond, this would lose 12 Stamina, 10 mp5 and 4 +healing (for resto shamans, the 33 INT of this helm + IED would give +10 more healing)

Gain 495 mana from the 33 INT (520 with Ancestral Knowledge), 16 crit rating, and the +300 mana proc from the IED

It's definitely gray area and dependent on your other gear, but I'd see these as being equal, since you're getting a ton more mana and the IED proc is difficult to quantify on Restoration Shamans.

Comment by scrusi

I would say this beats the **** out of the Metallic Headband for PVE use, mainly because of the meta socket.According to the information in the Insightful Earthstorm Diamond thread, the proc of the meta gem should be worth about 25 mp5 for a restoration shaman. (That is assuming 20 casts/min which should fit with resto shammy playstyle.) Now, the proc can sometimes be wasted when you still have full mana, so I will trim this down to a conservative 20 mp5 for the comparison.

Once more using the EJ stat weights:Seer's Ringmail Headpiece 189.65 Living Dragonscale Helm 184,84Headdress of the Tides 159,8To sum up, this entry level blue beats most pre-karazhan items due to its very valuable meta socket. The only more valuable blue that I can find is the Tidefury Helm which scores 205.25 on the EJ scale:

In the end, Tidefury may be a little better if you have mana issues, otherwise Seer's Ringmail until Karazhan. This is also much easier to obtain than hoping for Tidefury to drop and I don't think Tidefury is enough of an upgrade to waste another 2 expensive gems & a new head enchant.